Cage-Busting Leadership

Educational Innovations Series

by Frederick M. Hess

A practical and entertaining volume, Cage-Busting Leadership will be of profound interest and value to school and district leaders—and to everyone with a stake in school improvement.

Genres: Education, Leadership, Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 11, 2013

Reviews

[Mark Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The premise of this book is good. I happened to see Frederick Hess present at a conference and received a copy of the book. The points that he makes in the book and in his lecture series make sense. Use policy for leverage, don’t concede to extras in a contract when the law says you don’t have to. Fair points, but as a leader, relationships are important and in the education business if you are hated, you won’t be around very long!

[Bryson Fico · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great strategies fro moving beyond one's comfort zone and out of mediocre.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hess has a great idea - that we have been letting education leaders (administrators, district officials, and politicians) get away with blaming unions and teachers for bad policies, when in fact the policies are not nearly so restrictive as these bureaucrats would have us believe, and the bureaucrats are themselves partly to blame for the policies in the first place.
What comes from this is some great advice on how leaders can practically work around policy restrictions to ignite progress in our school systems.
Unfortunately, Hess litters the book with all of these lame pop-culture references; and I would estimate he uses the phrase "cage-busters" at least 2 times per page throughout the book. Still, if you can look past that this is a great contribution to our efforts to improve school systems.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful thoughts about how to bring about substantive change in education. There's a good emphasis on defining precisely your reform goals and looking into exactly what is (and isn't) actually standing in the way of you achieving those goals.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for work, but I found it pretty interesting and relevant to both my professional and personal life.

[Brandi Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Required reading for EdD but found very insightful and parallel to work and life.

[Cassandra Heifetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought provoking ideas for school leaders. While not every idea is one I've agreed with, I respect the courage, tenacity, and intentions of those featured.

[Hanrong Tham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book! I found it useful even though it was written in the US Education context.